


surrender

by incurableromancer



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Addiction, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Character Study, Drug Addiction, Hurt/Comfort, Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, M/M, nicky has an addictive personality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 21:48:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30146100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incurableromancer/pseuds/incurableromancer
Summary: Silently, he’d thought to himself that Nicky was a glutton for self-destruction, humanity’s most heartbreaking inclinations distilled into one otherwise perfect man, saved only by the fact that he could not die, could not grow sick, could not become diseased, was afforded an endless supply of chances to better himself and kick old habits.Three days later, Nicky came home with his first pack of Luckies. And, fuck if there wasn’t something almost pornographic about the way he curled his fingers and lips around the tube, how he sighed out the smoke, sometimes talked with it stuck in the very corner of his mouth, like he had forgotten it was there. If Joe didn’t love the bitter, thrilling taste of tobacco in his mouth, vaguely disgusting and obscene. At least for the first while.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 6
Kudos: 72





	surrender

**Author's Note:**

> trigger warning: this is a character study about nicky and different addictions throughout the centuries, and how they've impacted his relationships both with joe and the rest of the team.

The cigarettes were a six decade struggle that only ended when the research found beyond a reasonable doubt that secondhand smoke was a silent killer. The guilt combined with an unexpected stint caught up in a blockade forced Nicky to go cold turkey, and by the time they had access to tobacco again, he’d muscled his way through the worst of it. Just not without an uncharacteristic bout of irritability, impatience, and more than one nervous outburst. The whole thing had him shaken enough to make Joe, Booker and Andy promise never to let him pick up a cigarette again. He at least managed to get a handle on the craving, if not the fear of what would happen next time he had access, when his resolve would inevitably be pitted against the desire. Booker and Andy were given further instructions to beat him if he slipped up, because Joe would rather just give him the fucking smokes, rather than deal with the bizarre fallout, so unlike the Nicky he knows.

Nicky was late to tobacco, relative to everyone else in the world. He never chewed it. He’d had a cigar or two in the past, smoked some other things, but never anything they had the money or the access to steadily supply. Nothing that gave him the chance to make a habit.

Joe remembers the same way you do all the defining moments, crystal clear years down the line even though they’d laid dormant so long you didn’t know the memory existed at all until your mind came full circle. Remembers that they were in bed in a golden city dazzled by the high of the Great War’s end, finally letting out its breath because the influenza was dying down, too. A world on the precipice of yet another mighty fall. 

They were whispering about their days, cuddled up in the dark, and Nicky said something that made his skin prickle. He’d known, instinctively, and according to Nicky’s telltale cycle of morbid fascination that inevitably descended into obsession, no matter how appalled he was initially by the thing that hooked his attention this time, that a cigarette was going to find its way between Nicky’s lips. How many would follow that first one, only time would tell.

“I just don’t understand it, wanting to fill your lungs with smoke.” His fingers were curled lightly around Joe’s wrist, feeling for his pulse, probably without thinking about it. “What about it is so good? I mean- we’ve died in fires. I wouldn’t describe smoke inhalation as particularly pleasurable.”

His fingers were rubbing now, gentle. Joe thought that he could physically feel the curiosity thrumming through his Nicolo, like an itch under his skin.

Joe kissed the back of his neck, careful not to sigh. “I don’t know, my love. Best not to dwell on it. Humanity is a glutton for self destruction.”

Nicky’d snorted out his laugh, fingers tap-tapping long past their whispered _goodnights_ and _sweet dreams_ , letting Joe know that this fix had already seized Nicky’s attention.

Silently, he’d thought to himself that _Nicky_ was a glutton for self-destruction, humanity’s most heartbreaking inclinations distilled into one otherwise perfect man, saved only by the fact that he could not die, could not grow sick, could not become diseased, was afforded an endless supply of chances to better himself and kick old habits.

Three days later, Nicky came home with his first pack of Luckies. And, fuck if there wasn’t something almost pornographic about the way he curled his fingers and lips around the tube, how he sighed out the smoke, sometimes talked with it stuck in the very corner of his mouth, like he had forgotten it was there. If Joe didn’t _love_ the bitter, thrilling taste of tobacco in his mouth, vaguely disgusting and obscene. At least for the first while.

It didn’t really bother him until Nicky had already worked his way up to three packs a day, and started getting pissy when deprived. Nonetheless, he never really said much, save for the sigh of relief loaded with six decades of bated breath when Nicky finally kicked the habit.

His throat still feels tight whenever they’re in the company of a smoker and Nicky leans close to drink in the stench, greedy, because it still smells as toe-curling to him a century on as it did in the 1920s.

*

Sometimes it’s sex, and admittedly, Joe is fine with that. Pleased, even. There are worse things in the world than the love of your life deciding that he needs to figure out how to make you orgasm in at least a dozen new ways before your two week vacation is up, or him suddenly craving beard burn on his skin the same way other people crave sugar or conversation, or as has happened many times, becoming fixated on marking up Joe’s skin, sucking bruises over his neck and hips and arms and thighs over and over again, just to watch the reds and purples fade back to normal, get too caught up to pay attention to Joe needing to get off until Joe’s begging, and then after finishing him off going right back to his task, his own orgasm (or lack of) seemingly inconsequential, despite his erection. Joe’s long gained the ability to easily doze off while Nicky continues to nip at him, barely notices when Nicky slips into this particular fixation now, whether it lasts a night, a few, or even a week or a few.

And, yeah, sometimes it’s a little bit annoying when Nicky gets that particular itch while they’re on a job or while there are other things Joe wants to do to pass the time, but Nicky isn’t really a sex addict, per se, and he can and will reign it in the second Joe tells him to. It’s more that he has this constant drive and energy that always needs to be set towards _something_ , some kind of high or gratification or end goal he can chase, and sex just happens to be one that’s most often convenient and mutually beneficial.

*

Heroin was bad. There’s not a lot Joe _can’t_ talk about from his thousand years so far, but the person that shit turned Nicky into, the things it forced them all to watch him do, listen to him say? To watch him grow skinny and brittle, pale and bloodshot and unsteady enough that Andy confiscated his sniper, how he was too fucked up to even notice, how he took a swing at Booker when he stepped in to defend Joe from a strung out episode of ranting and seething, how he lied and stole and got _mean_ , got angry, did things they all knew he would have been disgusted by if he wasn’t out of his fucking mind, how he made Joe watch him kill himself on a bad batch not once but three times before he accepted help, and only then because Joe threatened to leave him for the first time in all their years, triggering a breakdown complete with sobbing and begging and pleading on his knees, face covered in snot, still half-jazzed and twitching, even though Joe _didn’t fucking mean it_ , how the fuck could he, and now he can’t fucking forget what Nicky had _looked_ like-

Joe can’t talk about what is was like to lose the only person, the only thing he has, the only reason he’s able to cope with this life. To lose his Nicky. To lose the only person he can completely trust and rely on, to have had a taste of losing his heart, to not recognize the look in those eyes he’s known as well as his own for hundreds of years. Not that.

There’s a reason they avoid America. Nixon’s war on drugs lives on in the impoverished, racialized communities that continue to be tormented and criminalized for the addictions that hold them captive, but Joe just can’t find it within himself to go back there and try and help. He knows Nicky’s share of their extra money these days goes to the cause, to trying to help people get back on their feet, and on the good days he’s glad for that. On the bad ones he just can’t think about it.

(He held his breath for the first few days after Merrick’s lab for a lot of reasons, but mostly because he was terrified Dr. Kozac had given Nicky opiates. That the shakes, the itching were just delated setting in, that they were going to have to live that fucking nightmare all over again. Nothing she could have done to them physically would have broken them, no amount of time locked up so long as they were together, really. But forcing them to go through that again could have.)

*

The gambling is fine. Anything more than card games around candlelit tables to pass the time in darker centuries started purely as a means of making money, and Nicky can count cards with the best of them, so it’s not like he’s in danger of betting away their lives. Not that most of their assets are even liquid anyway, unless they felt like trying to explain why Joe has a collection of previously unknown works gifted to him and Nicky personally by some of the greatest artists of the past millennium, where they came from, why they want to sell, where they’ve been hiding them. But they don’t, and Nicky doesn’t put himself in situations to lose more than he needs to in order to hustle, so it’s fine. Unless he’s betting with Booker, in which case he always loses. But even that’s fine, because Nicky could bet away everything they own to Booker and their brother would still use his winnings to keep them all fed and housed. It’s whatever.

He _has_ had some bad runs with blackjack, but poker is his domain. There’s not really any danger of Nicky flying off the rails with it, because he has no qualms about cheating, will always win if that’s what he sets out to do, and so there’s no particular danger in him getting lost chasing a victory that will never come. He can scratch the itch over planned nights or weekends every once in awhile, and it’s fine.

Joe doesn’t necessarily consider himself attracted to vice. Quite the opposite with Nicky, actually. Sweet, humble Nicky, kind Nicky, his beautiful, gentle Nicolo. But there’s something particularly sexy about watching him show off with a bunch of other big, strong, gun-welding men, a table ringed with testosterone and larger than life egos, to watch him lie through his teeth so effectively, watch him play his fallacious hands so well that he takes home the jackpot with little more than a self-satisfied smirk, _infuriatingly_ arrogant and cocky, and then to get fucked in their hotel room while Nicky’s still high on the victory, dollar bills and Champagne all around.

*

The alcohol could have been more of an issue than it was. Nicky didn’t take to the bottle outside of communion wine for many centuries, even when Joe had begun indulging every once in awhile, when they could afford it. But eventually he shrugged off the last of his lingering concerns with vice, and he began to drink himself stupid.

It wasn’t that often, mostly because travel was so difficult back then, money so hard to come by for people in their position. Spirits and wines were nowhere near the top of the list of things they needed to purchase and trade for. But when Nicky had the opportunity, he went hard. Not that Joe didn’t participate, because he did, and in fact, of the two of them, Joe got into more brawls and made more enemies once the drink had loosened his tongue. But where Joe quickly grew bored of the sickness after and easily chose not to partake when he wanted to be sharp the next day, Nicky had a hard time leaving any glass unfinished. Joe spent many nights dragging him, hiccuping and singing, home from taverns, cleaned too much of his vomit, had to recount too many of his questionable actions back to him, afterwards. ‘Black-out drunk’ would be the term used to describe it, today.

Looking back, Joe thinks that Nicky and Booker would have gotten along well in the period.

After Quynh, it stopped. In the decades of trying to keep Andy from destroying herself too completely, they were both faced with what alcohol did to a person already half-crazed with grief. They had to take care of her. Whether it was the sobering reality, newly formed guilt or shame from his past actions, or something else entirely, Joe has never asked. But since then, Nicky will have a single glass of wine with dinner, only when it’s offered, he’ll never ask for it himself. Otherwise, he doesn’t drink.

*

The video games drive Joe up the fucking wall. They’re a constant struggle, off and on, even still.

In the age of arcades, it was a little bit annoying to wait around for hours while Nicky wasted all their cash on whack-a-mole or Pac-man or Galaga. Usually his end goal was enough tickets to trade in for a huge teddybear or something in that vein for Joe, though, and eventually he’d run out of tokens, so it was easily forgiven and forgotten. They’re too old, the wonders of technology in the modern world too dazzling to hold the occasional phase of indulgence against each other. Especially since their work rarely has them in any one place for long, especially not one with an arcade, and Joe’s done more than his fair share of dragging Nicky around when he’s wanted to draw, and especially when he’s wanted to draw _him._

Fast forward a few decades. Consoles and handheld devices are a new challenge. The little adventure games are okay, the ones that you can beat. Joe even likes to play those ones himself, and play them with Nicky. The Pokemon ones are their favorite, though Joe admittedly doesn’t take them very seriously, and mostly he thinks it’s funny to watch Nicky get worked up over them, of getting everybody levelled up and evolved, working through every single side quest and filling out the Pokedex completely. It can be annoying for awhile, but once Nicky beats the games, the manic gleam in his eye goes away, and he can function as normal. He can put the game down, and Joe will have his husband back.

The live games, though. Those ones are fucking awful.

Call of Duty almost drove Joe to pack up his shit and leave Nicky to it for the duration of one of their usually much cherished vacations. Booker had introduced him at the worst possible time to playing online with other players, and gifted him a headset with which to _speak_ to them. It was almost cute while he was learning during moments snatched away while they were working, that he as an actual sniper would have any interest in first person shooter games. But then the X-Box made it into the bag they packed when they were finally able to get away for awhile, and it wasn’t so cute anymore.

For the first four days, Joe gritted his teeth. It was one of the times when he thought that the time would be put towards reconnecting and reassuring each other, because the last two years had been spent on an endless string of aid to some political cause or other that had ended in absolute disaster, and Joe was having a hard time with it, had been under the impression that Nicky was, too. But apparently his fucking zombie game was more of a comfort than his husband.

For four days, Nicky mostly yelled at the television (the people he was playing the game with? Joe never was sure), and Joe wandered around the house, poking through the memories of their long lives, feeling too unsettled and anxious to go far without Nicky, to get out into the beautiful, mundane, everyday world the way he probably needed to, and too spooked to ask for Nicky’s attention and company. But in all fairness, he shouldn’t have fucking had to ask. Nicky should have known, the way he had for centuries.

On the night of that fourth day, Joe was not feeling good at all. He was at his breaking point, needed to talk, but he was too petty to ask for Nicky’s attention, and so he’d gone to bed alone, didn’t even bother telling Nicky because he didn’t want to get waved off and end up hurt because he really needed to be close, even if he couldn’t quite say it, and Nicky was too absorbed in the virtual zombie war to notice that Joe’s brain was stuttering and fixating over the real ones they’d been in.

He woke up again at nearly 5:00am, and he was still alone in bed. And maybe it’s stupid that that’s what broke him, but even when they’re working, sleep is supposed to be the time that they have each other, mentally and physically, curled together and safe. How badly it stung to wake up alone in their time off, the only time when nothing is threatening them, when they are each other’s to enjoy. To have to tamp down the ache of worry, the irrational fear that Nicky wasn’t there because he was somehow dead, or taken, not because Nicky _couldn’t_ be with him, not because anything was wrong, but because he was _choosing_ to be somewhere else, choosing a stupid fucking game over Joe.

So he’d stumbled out to the sitting area, heart racing, and sure enough, there was Nicky, bags under his eyes the size of the fucking moon, still plonked in front of the X-Box.

He’d glanced up, trailing off mid sentence when he’d seen Joe hunched in the doorway, duvet around his shoulders. And then the controller dropped to the ground, forgotten, the headset flung onto the sofa when Joe abruptly and unceremoniously burst into tears.

Eventually he would fall back to sleep in Nicky’s arms, and the next day he realized that the X-Box was gone. He never asked what Nicky did with it, but he knows he never touched a Call of Duty game again.

*

Weed is definitely not a problem. There have been phases throughout the centuries, nothing insane, just when the opportunity presented itself. Andy is usually the one seeking it out.

It’s fun, it eases the emotional burden of this life, it helps them all sleep, and Joe likes the giggly, sluggish haze, likes how it feels to have sex while they’re high. He likes watching Nicky’s pupils get big without having to worry about him doing something stupid.

Nicky’s shown him recent research. It doesn’t hit the same buttons for him that alcohol or tobacco or opiates do. He doesn’t crave it when he can’t have it, not any more than Andy or Joe or Booker or Nile, anyway. Joe isn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Nicky’s weed brownies are the only thing that hold a candle to his baklava, in Andy’s expert opinion.


End file.
